


You carried the black heart passed down from your dad

by bloomingcnidarians



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Hallucinations, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6228739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloomingcnidarians/pseuds/bloomingcnidarians
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Target practice and Torfan. A Tulsi Shepard character study.<br/>Tulsi Shepard's father has high expectations for his daughter and pushed her mercilessly to achieve them. No one anticipated the lasting impact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You carried the black heart passed down from your dad

**Author's Note:**

> Much love to [dearophelia](http://dearophelia.tumblr.com) for beta-ing.

The bullet burst through the paper, the singed edges of the hole curling out like a shriveled leaf. The hole sat stark and alone, far from the inked outline of a figure, far from the goal.

“Again.”

Tulsi tightened her grip on the rifle and fitted her eye to Mantis scope. Her breath squeezed in her lungs as all her muscles locked in rigid stress. Her finger jerked the trigger and the rifle leapt in her arms, the scope striking her eye in furious retaliation.

Another hole blossomed on the crisp target, closer by a minuscule amount.

“Again.”

Her thin, 7-year old arms shook under the heavy weight of the gun, her limbs not strong yet from her tumbling lessons, each tremor of pain pulsing down her nerves. Sweat– _only, surely, only sweat_ –dripped down eyes burning with exhaustion.

She lifted the scope to her face again but her grip faltered, slick with sweat and muscles shamed by fatigue. Slipping in her grasp, the metal punched backwards into her eye socket and she cried out, the tip of the rifle striking the floor as she lifted a hand to clutch at her face.

“Tulsi. _Again._ ”

She glanced up at her father, staring into his impassive, expectant face. He did not speak again and she kept her eye on him, feeling the flesh around her eye swell and throb.

Shame swept through her, shame and hurt and loneliness. Breaking the gaze first, she sniffed loudly, her exhale rattling with unshed tears and swiped at the trail of snot leaking out of her nose. Her chest ached, weighed down by her father’s stare until nothing existed but her failures, lit up like a neon sign between them. Wiping her hand on her pants, she gripped the rifle with both hands and breathed in the overwhelming scent of gun oil mixing with the spicy aroma of cloves and nutmeg from her father’s tea, forgotten on the table near by.

Lifting the rifle again– _breathe in, breathe out, in and out_ –she brought her eye slowly to the scope. She could feel her father’s eyes move off her, to stare at the far-off target, waiting. Her finger curled around the trigger; a brief, erratic spasm shivered down her nerves, nearly pulling the trigger.

 _Breathe in._ She steadied her grip on the forestock. _Breathe out._ The circles and numbers on the target appeared in her scope–7, 8, 9, until the center x fit snugly in her crosshairs. _Breathe in._

She squeezed the trigger and the rifle popped up and back against her shoulder, gun thunder snapping in the air. _Breathe out._ Lifting her eyes to the target, she stared, a small smile curling at her lips at the smoking hole near the top 8.  
She turned to her father, a full smile threatening to burst on her lips, as he continued to stare at the target.

“Again.”

***

The air was stale in the batarian stronghold, thin and recycled and doing little to fill Tulsi’s lungs as she moved towards the last room in the hall. _The last room._ The last place the fleeing batarians had scurried to hide.

She slid one foot in front of the other, creeping along the cold steel wall. Lieutenant Webb followed at her six, her labored breathing harshly loud. Tulsi glanced behind Webb, down the empty hallway, a hallway that should have been choked with the other members of her squad. She felt her stomach squeeze and she pulled stale air through her nose. _Breathe in._ As the air curled through her lungs, she pulled her grief, her fear, her sympathy along until it burst from between her lips, mixed with worthless air. _Breathe out._

She gestured to Webb to cross to the opposite side of her and slunk closer to the last room. Tipping her head closer to the entrance, Tulsi’s eyes swept the small corner in her view. Webb took up position across from Tulsi, her left side closest to the door.

Tulsi lifted her hand, three fingers poised between them. She dropped one finger and tightened her grip on her pistol. Dropping a second finger, she looked into Webb’s eyes, raw fear striking back at her. Tulsi pressed her lips together and breathed the last wisp of emotion out of her body.

Curling her last finger down, she pulled her pistol up, gripping it with both hands as she stepped around the corner.

A batarian came into her view and she squeezed the trigger. His body flopped to the floor. Movement from the corner pulled her attention towards the far wall, a fresh hole blooming on the batarian’s head.

 _“Again.”_ Her father’s voice pierced through the blanket of silence that covered her combat-ready mind.

Another batarian appeared in her sight and fell just as quickly.

_“Again.”_

She rounded a pile of broken furniture, found another batarian cowering against the floor. Two quick shots and she stepped her way through pooling blood. The air smelled of gun oil, rich and heavy with spice. Cloves and nutmeg. The rustle of paper targets clamped to the track.

_“Again.”_

The paper target appeared in front of her, far, far closer than it had ever been before. _Is he giving me an advantage?_ One shot, perfectly aligned on the center x. The singed hole spreading black, like liquid char across the paper.

_“Again.”_

Another target, another perfect, smoking hole. Again and again. Sometimes the paper target moved, sometimes the paper target stood still with thin paper arms raised and waving in the air, sometimes the paper target cowered on folded knees. She met every challenge her father threw at her, shot after shot after shot. _Again again again again again._

And then there were no more targets. No more stark sheets with crisp body outlines. No sound of her father’s voice crushing against her skull. She turned and looked back at the bodies in her wake.

The **bodies.** Flesh, not paper. Blood, not ink. She breathed deeply of the stale, gunpowder soaked, clove-less air. Everything crashed back into her, the fear and guilt she’d left hanging in the air outside the room, every batarian, attacking, cowering, **surrendering**. Every hole she’d torn through their bodies. **Every single one.**

She gagged, bent double, vomiting bile and bits of food-–tinged green with her breakfast kiwi-–across concrete stained dark russet. Heave after heave until nothing tangible remained. She straightened, swiping at her mouth and dripping nose. She glanced at the nearest body, blood oozing from four bullet wounds–three errant shots to the shoulder, hip, and thigh. Three tries to get it right.

Lieutenant Webb stared at her from a few yards away. Tulsi couldn’t see her face, the opaque visor shielded Webb’s expression, and she didn’t see the fear in her posture, body quivering like a stalked rabbit.

But Tulsi **knew** what was on her features, had seen it a thousand times during target practice, math lessons, tumbling exercises, her hand-drawn birthday card for her grandmother with slightly wobbly lines. She could see the familiar minute tightening of the jaw, the identical weighted gaze. Could almost hear the indifferent _again._

Tulsi spit the last of the bile from her mouth. “Stopping looking at me like that. You look like my father.”


End file.
